Lead Time
Lead Time
Hope in the LCMS: Celebrating the Good - Lutheran Hour Ministries Speaker Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler
Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler shares his hopeful perspective on the LCMS, emphasizing the importance of cultural hospitality and unity through shared goals. The conversation explores the mission of Lutheran Hour Ministries, the importance of dialogue in faith, and the future vision for a welcoming church community.
• Discussing hope and innovation within the LCMS
• The significance of cultural hospitality in worship experiences
• Utilizing the Robber's Cave Experiment to illustrate unity
• Balancing mission and formation within the church community
• Outreach efforts of Lutheran Hour Ministries and local church partnerships
• Emphasizing the importance of dialogue in sharing faith
• The vision for the LCMS as a welcoming community for all
If you'd like to connect with Rev. Dr. Michael Ziegler and learn more about the work of Lutheran Hour Ministries, visit lhm.org.
Breaking down faith, culture & big questions - a mix of humor with real spiritual growth.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Join the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)
https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletter
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time. Tim Allman here with Jack Kalberg.
Speaker 2:This is a beautiful day to be alive, to grow up into Jesus, who is our head. He loves you so much and I pray you're buckled up today for a great conversation with, I would say there's so many amazing leaders doing so many amazing things in the LCMS. So grateful for that. But today you get to listen to a voice or, if you're watching on YouTube, see a man that I've respected from afar for some time. This is Reverend Doctor. Do you have your doctorate? I'm looking in your yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you got your PhD. Yeah, back in 2014. There it is so, reverend Dr Michael Ziegler, and Michael Ziegler is serving as a Lutheran Hour ministry speaker for some time now, beginning in 2018. Prior to that, he served as a pastor at Epiphany Lutheran from 14 to 18, assistant pastor at Timothy Lutheran Church in St Louis for a couple three years, and before becoming a pastor, though, he served as an aircraft maintenance officer in the Air Force.
Speaker 2:Michael grew up in a military family living throughout the US. This is wild. His family moved 11 times before he finished high school in Springfield, missouri. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy. That is significant. He's a graduate of the US Air Force Academy in 2001 with a general engineering degree, and he served five years in the Air Force. Thank you for your service. He left active duty in 2006 to prepare to be a pastor at Concordia Seminary in St Louis, completed an MDiv in 2010 and that PhD in 2014. He continues to serve part-time I love this Part-time as an Air Force Reserve Officer at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois and as a guest instructor at Concordia Seminary in St Louis.
Speaker 2:Michael and his wife, Amy, have four children. We're just talking about one of your children Love to hear about more of them. Amy is a Lutheran educator by training and works with local refugees and immigrants to connect them with Christian communities how cool is that? And she enjoys being a catalyst for events aimed at strengthening bonds between family and friends. Michael, so good to have you today, brother. How are you doing man?
Speaker 4:I'm doing great, Tim. I really appreciate your efforts on this podcast. I've listened a little bit and I think the more we can just talk with each other out in public, it's a good thing. So thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, this is going to be so much fun, Jack. You doing all right, we can just talk with each other out in public.
Speaker 2:It's a good thing, so thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, this is going to be so much fun. Jack, you doing all right too, you loving life.
Speaker 3:I'm loving life, man. It's, yeah it's. We're having a cold snap, a little bit of a cold snap. We're having a break of a cold snap right now. But I'm loving it Right, because because it's taking us out of allergy season for a while and so I'm feeling great. I mean I'm enjoying that, uh, the cold snap and actually getting ready to fly out to boston this weekend, so it's gonna be really cold there. I'm gonna enjoy it. Man, I'm a polar bear, I like the cold, but you're both in phoenix area.
Speaker 3:We're both actually in gilbert, close to phoenix.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay so what's a cold snap in gilbert?
Speaker 3:a Arizona Cold snap is like it approaches freezing at night. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cold. Yeah, december, january, that's about yeah, you'll have average highs in the low 60s, maybe the upper 50s. We're supposed to get like a second monsoon. We're not really seeing that right now. We've had like no, when was the last time it rained here, jack? It is so ridiculously dry.
Speaker 3:It's been a hot minute, since we've seen any rain. Yeah, so anyway, it seems in the last few years that those gaps get bigger and bigger. So it does.
Speaker 2:There's no perfect place outside of the presence of Jesus. We have our four months of just it's hot. It's hellaciously hot, and then it's hot, and it's warm, and then it's perfect. Yeah, it is paradise here for about six months out of the year. Go ahead, Jack.
Speaker 3:Most places in America ice cream sales go up in the summer and in Arizona ice cream sales go down because people don't want to go outside into the heat to get ice cream.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, Well we pray.
Speaker 4:The fire of the Holy Spirit is present with you today, no matter if you're in a cooler or warmer environment, like we are.
Speaker 2:Let's start out with this question. Michael, as you look at the LCMS, you get to serve the LCMS and the wider church I mean Lutherans across the world as the Lutheran hour speaker. But as you look at the LCMS in particular, what's giving you hope at the present moment, brother? But as you look at the LCMS in particular, what's?
Speaker 4:giving you hope at the present moment. Brother, I've been blessed with a perspective that I think not a lot of people in the LCMS have. I get to travel quite a bit and see lots of different churches and LCMS institutions but unlike other administrative ministry workers, I get to see all the good Like I'm not called in for conflict resolution and things like that. I get to see celebrations and and the church at her best, and so that that gives me a ton of hope. There's just this.
Speaker 4:Last fall I traveled through throughout the country and then, looking back further, you know churches, lcms churches in Virginia and Alaska and North and South Dakota and Tennessee and Texas and Michigan and Washington, and there's a. This fall I went to the state fair at the Kansas state fair and there was a group of lay people who organized a Sunday morning service at the state fair and they ran out this grandstand and would bring in choirs from different churches and I got to serve as the preacher for that church In the middle of the state fair. We had a church service. I get to see rural churches get joined together to do big festival services in the local public high school gym. I get to work with pastors who are wearing, you know, just Hawaiian shirts or whatever at worship, and then guys in who are full cassocks and doing the incense and chanting and and see how they they love their people and their people love them and they love their neighborhood. I see the best of the LCMS and it gives me a lot of hope.
Speaker 3:It sounds like you see a lot of people passionately going into mission, being missional to the community and being very innovative and actually like in very diverse ways. That's really awesome, man.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think mission, mission and formation these are things that we all care about. However we do the expression of the historic faith that we've received. People care about forming the next generation, raising them up and reaching out to everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, and we need all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people in all different contexts, and we are a strong advocate for cultural hospitality, contextual hospitality and all different types of ways that the liturgy can be expressed in our various, you know, from urban to suburban to rural, small town communities, united under the one common confession. Jesus is Lord, as articulated in scriptures and then found going deeper in the Lutheran confessions, like we all took the same same vows and so I'm praying. This podcast really wants to be a place where people can have strong opinions one way or another, but a place where love and joy and unity around our common confession. We've got to work more, I think, toward places of commonality. Right, it's so easy to become, you know, divisive and to have strong opinions. I think we need to become more hospitable toward strong opinions one way or another regarding a variety of different topics.
Speaker 2:You think wine, women's song and you've got. You could talk formation strategies, et cetera, but I think you have to. Before those conversations can take place toward a healthy end, you have to start from a place of robust agreement on the essentials of what we signed on for when we became Lutheran and specifically LCMS pastors Any more to say toward that approach in working toward unity from a place of agreement, michael.
Speaker 4:So I ran across this book called the Robber's Cave Experiment and it was referenced in a Jonathan Haidt book and then I saw a reference elsewhere. But the main idea is they wanted to study how to unify groups that are at tension with each other. And this is a sociological experiment done back in the mid 40s, maybe late 40s, by some social scientists so not from a Christian perspective out of Oklahoma City, and it's just an awesome experiment. This is one of these experiments that could never be approved today for ethical reasons. But they brought they brought two groups of boys 10 year old, 11 year old boys to this summer camp called the Robert Robert's cave state park in Oklahoma, and these boys were were so alike in in all the ethnic, sociological ways. They were all from kind of white, protestant, good, healthy families in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 4:They bring them out to this camp and then they start to have them compete against each other and they become territorial and groupish and they hate each other. It gets so bad that they, um, they start raiding each other's cabins. They, they're, they catch them filling socks with rocks that they're gonna bludgeon to death. This is like lord of the flies and it's incredible. Uh, they, they had this tug of war between and they, the groups, ended up naming themselves the rattlers and the eagles, and they have this tug of war that lasts 48 minutes before one of them finally wins. This is how serious the competition gets.
Speaker 4:Like a street gang going, going at yeah, these 11 year old white protestant boys that are all pretty much alike become street thugs that are ready to kill each other. And so then the experiment is like okay, how do we, how do we unite these two groups, what? And then the key term is superordinate goals. So goals that are so big that they require all of us to work together towards something bigger. And so they stage this thing where they took the two groups together out on an old bus and they were told they were going to have a camping trip there. But then they simulate that the bus gets broke down and they're like, oh, we don't have any food. We got to go back to get your food at the camp, but the bus is broken. What do we do, guys? And it's a, it's an old, uh, 1940s bus that does like a. You know, you can do a bump start, uh. Then you know, pop the clutch and get it rolling. So the boys are like let's all push the bus. And the counselor's like, yeah, that's a great idea. They, they couldn't get it moving, pushing it. And so they use their old tug of war rope and they, they pull, they're like let's have a tug of war against the bus. And you know, long story short, they get it going and several other kinds of activities like that.
Speaker 4:But that was the key finding of that study was that superordinate goals unite people who are divided. And you know, you just look at Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well in John 4. What is he talking about? Is this hatred between Jews and Samaritans? It's a bigger harvest, you know. The disciples come back and they're surprised to see Jesus talking to this woman and he says open your eyes, the fields are ripe for harvest and I'm sending you to labor for what you have not worked for. And so you know, bigger mission, bigger God, bigger challenges that require all of us. That's what. That's what unites us Always has, always will.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, it's powerful. I'm just thinking in my mind. Here again, both of us are military guys. Like the military incorporates this kind of stuff into its training. It creates these challenges in their training. Scenarios where you're not doing this apart from a team, you are not doing this apart from a team, you are not doing this on your own period. You either unify as a team to overcome this challenge or this challenge is not overcome, period Right, and I think it's so helpful. You start to realize that no matter the diversity of that group or that team they're different opinions, they're different backgrounds, whatever we can work together as a team. We can overcome this challenge.
Speaker 2:But we have to be together to do it. And then you start to identify with these people who are different, with you now as coworkers being in co-mission. The military's got a mission, we're no challenge. It doesn't mean that this is easy. The superordinate goal I mean you see this get lived out in the book of Acts. It was remarkably messy. Relationships were splintered and they come back together over time. Distance is created. But the superordinate goal was we have to get the gospel.
Speaker 2:Remember what Jesus said we have to get the gospel from Jerusalem, judea, samaria to the ends of the earth, acts 1.8. And the Holy Spirit is going to accomplish immeasurably more than remembering Jesus' words. You remember he said it's going to be good if I go in, because I'm going to be the Holy Spirit. Oh yeah, the Holy Spirit has descended and off we go. It's going to be beautiful, it's going to be hard, it's going to be messy, but Jesus actually makes us place. I'm impressed by how many times the Apostle Paul reminds the believers that they're in Christ, that they're the body of Christ, the super high driving. Why, if we read the Apostle Paul without the mission of God being the center point of his, why to start churches to raise up leaders to multiply disciples to get the gospel to see it lived out all the way to the point of his. Why to start churches to raise up leaders to multiply disciples, to get the gospel to see it lived out all the way to the point of Rome at the end of the book of Acts? If we see the book of Acts and Paul's writings of the churches and anything other than the fulfillment of the mission of God as given by Jesus, we're going to miss it. We're going to miss it. That's what kept him going. There's a book called.
Speaker 2:We get to have Michael Gorman on the podcast. He's a doctor, a residential theologian at St Mary's Seminary and I think it's out east somewhere, I think it may be Anglican, et cetera. Anyway, he wrote a book called Becoming the Gospel and it's the missionary why the missionary? Thrust of, and about halfway through it, of the Apostle Paul, and he looks at all the different letters of Paul and kind of helps us see them differently. Not as like theological documents, though there is theology, that's given for sure. Just words about God and formation. That's given as a church is, you know, ebbing and flowing and struggling and thriving, etc. Given as a church is, you know, ebbing and flowing and struggling and thriving, et cetera, but they're. They're letters to the church to remind them of their main why, which is which is the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many as possible.
Speaker 4:So, michael, any any follow-up to that brother?
Speaker 4:Well, we talked about mission and formation, and sometimes we we got to distinguish between the two.
Speaker 4:You know, making disciples, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded by baptizing, you know, this is, this is the formational making disciples goal, and then there's the new disciples goal, and, and sometimes we, we emphasize one over the other, over the other, and I think what what joins them together is that, whether you've been following, whether you've been a Christian a long time or a little time, being a disciple is is a ultimately about relationships, it's not about knowledge and it's an ongoing battle of being threatened with your own sin and death and the devil hanging around your neck.
Speaker 4:And so even the most mature Christian can meet a brand new or a not yet Christian in that place before Jesus and know exactly what they're going through. Because that's what we, every Sunday, you know, we come back, the liturgy leads us back to that point where we are, we have nothing in our hands, and we we come to Jesus empty and he fills us up. Well, that's the experience that everybody has coming in the door. And so I don't think it's. It's easy to see how the two goals, mission and formation come together and I think we can emphasize that.
Speaker 2:You know we, leslie Newbigin has this great vision from his book Open Secret, where the Christian does not stand above and speak down to the unchristian, non-christian, not yet Christian.
Speaker 3:But he meets him down there as a sinner looking to Jesus for mercy. I love that so much. That's how Christ works.
Speaker 2:He comes down to us right, exactly, yeah, and we have no ability to go out until Christ comes and changes us, gives us an entirely new perspective, an entirely new disposition toward the things of God, because on my own I want nothing to do with Jesus. Right, I'm broken, fallen, I'm a wretch, a wretch like. Who will save me from this body of death? Praise be to God, through Jesus. That's, you know, obviously, romans 7. Into then the best chapter, I think, of all Paul's writing, romans chapter 8. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God that's ours in Christ Jesus. And that driving why of the Holy Spirit like changes me from the inside out. I think we often wrestle with and Gorman goes into this the centripetal force. So that's a move toward the center and I think that's discipleship. You got to get closer and closer, to become more and more like Jesus by the power of the Spirit, passive faith, like I'm not doing anything. I'm being drawn toward Jesus as he meets me in word and sacrament. But then the centrifugal force, that's the move out away from the center, away from the relationships, out into the discomfort of the darkness, knowing that Jesus is within us and surrounding us as we're mobilized as the people of God. If you get if you get imbalanced on either one of those right Cause I, I'm a. What about us, pastor? You got to take care of us, Obviously, yeah, yeah, I want it. So let's keep gathering. We need the reminder of the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation that comes from Jesus and at the same time we're we're ascending body. We're gathering and ascending body.
Speaker 2:Gorman says that there's a participatory anticipation that takes place. That means we're participating in the work of God, receiving his gifts. And then there's this anticipation, this vision for the future. Obviously, the ultimate fulfillment is when Christ comes back to make all things new. But the kingdom of heaven is not just then and there. It's like here and now. It's just beyond where we are, where God is already at work and he's inviting us to follow him. Follow him there for the sake of our neighbors who do not know the love of Christ and Jesus. So centripetal and centrifugal force are always, always at work.
Speaker 2:I guess the follow-up to that, michael, are there areas of growth. And now you say I get to see all the good. I get to see all the good, but from your perspective, are there areas of growth? And we've touched on some? Maybe we're not always talking to one another and putting the best construction on our various contexts. That's one of my, I think, primary areas for growth for us in the LCMS. Any other areas of growth, as you kind of just look at the wider landscape.
Speaker 4:Well, I'll speak from my current call as Speaker of the Lutheran hour. We Lutheran hour ministries is an organization that is all about that centrifugal outward movement, and I think we could always grow in that. And so we're not as a ministry. We are. We are focused on getting the gospel out. We have these strategic imperatives that ground us and guide us as an organization, and I love them the the.
Speaker 4:Essentially, we want every human being on the planet to hear about Jesus and to know who he is and what he's done for them, and we're not going to rest until that's fulfilled, and that's a huge, huge task. You know, three billion or so people don't know Jesus, and those who know his name don't know who he really is in many cases, and so we want to keep that outward movement. So I think we could definitely grow in the LCMS and realizing that in a post-Christian, post-Constantinian synthesis you know, whatever term you want to use to label it people are not asking the questions that we were asking 50 years ago, a hundred years ago, 500 years ago, and so we need to listen to what kinds of questions the culture around us is asking. The gospels speaks into those questions, but we just maybe haven't developed the muscles, reflexes or manner of speaking that helps us speak into those kinds of questions.
Speaker 2:So I think we can definitely grow. Yeah, amen, let's go deeper there. What are those primary cultural questions that we need to be lovingly sitting and I don't even like maybe answering, because that can be kind of from outside here. This is what we have to be sensitive to the questions of culture today. What are those, Michael?
Speaker 4:So, exactly like you said it's, rather than thinking of questions and answers, we can think of dialogue. And how is there a give and take between the revealed truth, the first article truth, the natural revelation that's already present in the world, that you can hear people longing for meaning and for purpose and for community? These are all good. First article of the created, implanted desires that we want and we can speak the gospel not only as correcting those needs. I mean, certainly those felt needs are not a good moral compass or theological compass, and so the part of the gospel is a corrective to that search for meaning, purpose, community, security, all these things that people hunger for. They may not be looking plagued by guilt and looking for forgiveness from God because God's just not a part of their worldview or or psychological structure at the time, but they feel the needs and so we can. We can talk about those, not only contradicting them but showing how the gospel completes them.
Speaker 3:So I think that would be a real, felt, felt needs like the needs are real and they're going to go somewhere. And if the church isn't ready to meet people in their needs, they're going to go somewhere else.
Speaker 4:That's the that's the issue, right, yeah, and so you see jesus, using these felt need, kind of experiences, hunger. The people are hungry, they want bread. Give us bread, jesus, and he, he gives them bread. But he doesn't stop there. He says you know, the true bread from heaven is he who comes down and gives his life to the world. He talks about thirst. You know, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And so he starts with these created needs and then he takes them beyond that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he doesn't start with guilt or shame in those cases, that's really good.
Speaker 3:We talk about felt needs as an on-ramp in the community, right, there are people in our community right now, gilbert, that are not interested in an invitation to church, but they are interested in learning how to have a healthier marriage Right, and so we have a lot of wisdom as the church to teach people about how to have healthy marriages.
Speaker 3:So we invite, as an example, where you can invite people in to have a workshop or have community around what does it look like to improve your marriage? And they'll trust the church or people on behalf of the church to tell them something about this that makes them have a better relationship church or people on behalf of the church to tell them something about this that makes them have a better relationship. Well, at the end of nine weeks, or however many weeks, that program might be to help them with their marriage, now that invitation to church is different. It's a different type of invitation because of the different type of relationship that you have. You were just a stranger with them. Now you're part of a community that's helped them with a felt need and now you're inviting them in that process of discipling about marriage, teaching them about Jesus and inviting them to get even more connected into Jesus through congregational participation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love that. That's a great example discussion, dialogue.
Speaker 2:today is around worship and we can definitely talk about worship, but I think a place that we can agree, I think today is because of Lutherans, we worship in a unique way. Right, we're a liturgical church. I got to tell you it may be weird for pre-Christians to come into our churches. We got a Google review recently that I don't know if some guy came to our traditional service or I don't know what service it was, but he said, hmm, interesting. What did he say?
Speaker 3:Seems kind of cultish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sense cult vibes. I caught cult vibes and, let's just be honest, like it is a weird thing to come in and see a guy dressed in a different way, people, people saying the same thing, uh, the call and response in some of our liturgies and and things like, and they drink the body and blood of Jesus, like you say, like we're participating in the death of Christ and drinking the body and blood of.
Speaker 2:Jesus for the forgiveness of sin. There are some weird things, and I think one of the points of agreement is like attractional worship. Well, we want people to be attracted to, but we need to meet people where they are and then kindly explain why we do what we do. That's discipleship over over time, um, and so I think we can agree that the worship gathering is primarily, though. The Lord can do what the Lord wants to do, and he meets people in beautiful ways who are far from the Lord in worship. So I'm not downgrading that possibility, but primarily, worship is a catalyst for mission. Worship is a formation for us as the people of God, as we hear his word and are then sent out into our communities. Any other followup to that Michael Strong cult vibe?
Speaker 4:Isn't that weird? Yeah, no, that's, I think, one. We should just be weird and not be afraid to be weird, and realize that every community has a particular way of being.
Speaker 4:If you go to a military dining in, it's going to be weird. They're all going to be wearing uniforms, they're going to be having weird things and they don't apologize for it and you know that if you're there you're an outsider and there's just some things you're not going to understand and that's okay. That's how community, every community, is. We are a unique community as a church that we are called to be cognizant of those people looking in. It's interesting, as you were talking about worship at first Corinthians, is it a six, seven, eight? Where he's talking about speaking in tongues and Paul's concern there is not so much disorderly worship but he's like, hey, the unbeliever is going to overhear and he's not going to know what you guys are doing. Make sure you interpret for the sake of the unbeliever who's listening in. And you know it's a little bit different for us because we're not all crowded together in Corinth and people listening to our services in that way, but they are listening on the internet. You know you stream your services, you put them up on the internet. So that's another place.
Speaker 4:I think every pastor could grow and it's something that's really challenged me to grow. On the Lutheran hour the last six years is. I need to speak in longhand, I need to explain things, I need to develop some kind of rapport and explanation. Why do we even read from this old book and why does this guy, jesus, even matter and kind of start like again back to the felt needs but not leaving people there, leading them to show how the scriptures and Jesus speaks into I hesitate to use the word relevant, but he speaks into these conundrums and problems and feelings that we have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so good. Well, let's talk about Lutheran Hour a little bit more. What do you love about the mission and the story of Lutheran Hour? Michael, I know you get to tell this story all the time and I think anytime an organization has been around for as long as Lutheran Hour is, you kind of go back to that origin story. Are we fulfilling, kind of our primary calling? So how do you tell the story and what do you love about the current mission of LHM?
Speaker 4:As I started saying before that we are part of that centrifugal my son, who's in physics, yeah, outward outward, yeah, centrifugal, yeah, flinging out.
Speaker 4:We are part of that, flinging out the Holy Spirit flinging us out into the world, part of the church. Or maybe you think of the inhale and exhale you got to do both. Or steering and ped, exhale, you gotta, you gotta do both. Or steering and pedaling a bike, you gotta do both. And we're part of that outward moment and movement of the church. And that's always been the focus of Lutheran Hour Ministries and Lutheran Hour. Walter A Meyer, first speaker of the Lutheran Hour, started it in 19,. I think first broadcast was mid 1920s. It actually got started like fully in 1930. So we are in our 92nd broadcast season, so 93 years unbroken this thing has been going on. I'm the 10th pastor to hold this position. It is an amazing heritage that we got in to this new technology 100 plus years ago. And the overlooked part of the Lutheran hour that I love to tell is when they were looking to put it on the radio. First they wanted it to be an hour but it was too expensive, so it's a half hour. It's always been a half hour.
Speaker 2:So people were like yeah, there's no way it could be the Lutheran.
Speaker 4:So they're like, well, let's just call it an hour, like in a figurative sense, and and uh, but it's, we could only afford a half hour. So it's always been a half hour. Don't tell me, oh, the Lutheran's hour is only a half hour. Now you guys are not faithful, like no, it's always been a half hour so. And then the other thing was when, when they put it on the radio, they did not put it on the radio on sunday morning. It was not supposed to be a replacement for local worship. It was not supposed to be. It could be if someone had it was traveling. Sure, it was not supposed to be worship for shut-ins. It could be if there had no one else, nowhere else to get to the word. But they put it on Thursday at 9 pm Central or 9 pm Eastern, because that was the entertainment hour and it only later moved to Sundays. But that's a vision that I have really been drawn to, that this this is the Lutheran hour is an evangelistic message and I love that as a challenge. It's not a sermon in the sense of it can be, but that's a secondary thing. But it is evangelistic message.
Speaker 4:Every podcast, I'm sure, every program, has to have some kind of avatar listener or viewer. Every program has to have some kind of avatar listener or viewer. And I imagine a 50 year old guy that I served in the military with who's kind of agnostic but maybe open to the church and Christianity. How do I speak to him? How do I speak into his life? And and then you know, I brought you. It's interesting to think about avatars you. The more particular you imagine your listener, the more universal your message gets. It's one of those paradoxical things, but that it's an evangelistic message is what I love about the Lutheran hour and that's the focus of the whole organization.
Speaker 4:We've got lay led evangelistic work. That's happening in 60 different countries doing Lutheran hour like things reaching. They're speaking the gospel in different ways satellite TV broadcast in Farsi in the middle East, in person ministry in schools in central America. Pastor doing a broadcast in Kazakhstan and in the in the local language there, 200 million times a week. Lutheran Hour ministry. People are proclaiming the gospel in radio, print TV, whatever, in person. That's how big this ministry has grown and people just don't know the story. But we're not planting churches, we're not forming disciples. Primarily we are getting the gospel out and helping people get connected to healthy Christian communities, wherever they are.
Speaker 3:So one thing is like back in the 19th this is like very early innovation in ministry is to get in on radio. I don't know how many other churches were in that radio space at this time, but I know this was a big move, a big innovative move for a church that is very conservative in its views of the Bible. It's a testimony to you know, the idea of becoming all things to all people that we are. This is a unchangeable truth, but it needs to be distributed in as many ways as possible and there's diverse ways of doing this, and I love the innovation behind this unchangeable truth that exists and it's amazing to see how big the impact is now, even because of that. And I'm super curious to know how does that actually tie into the local congregation? Because I can see it being a bridge between a person who's listening and a person who's looking for community. So what does that process look like?
Speaker 4:It's different in every context in every country, but the emphasis is always the same. The knowledge of the need is always the same. We are like the Air Force, you know we come in and we want to create gospel rich environments through media. And it just said it's in the air, in the ether, everywhere People turn a dial and there's something, there's a gospel thing, there's somebody talking about Jesus, it's everywhere you go and of course we're part of that. That. Every, every church these days has some kind of online presence, and so we want to create gospel rich environments.
Speaker 4:But you can't win a war with air power alone. You need boots on the ground, you need the Marines to go in and set up beach heads, you need the army to come in, and so that's the partnership that Lutheran Hour Ministries has with local Christian communities. It may not always be a church, it may not always be Lutheran in in Iran, you know, there might not be, there might not be a Lutheran church that people can go to, but there maybe is an underground Christian community that the, the satellite broadcast can help connect people to in in a country like that, and so we we always that's. That is another part of our strategic, or these strategic imperatives is to connect people to healthy Christian communities wherever they are In America, in North America it's certainly we want to partner with the local LCMS church Around the world. It's kind of whatever we can, whatever we can get to connect people to healthy Christian community, somebody, a community that will receive them and will teach them the faith, introduce them to Jesus, walk with them, help them grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you all are the evangelical tip of the spear right now in the LCMS and for Lutheranism at large, and I love that heart. Wherever there's like. We just want to get the gospel out into people and then we can. Then we can talk about the deeper things of what it means to be a Christian in a Lutheran tradition, but first and foremost it's evangelism. We have to share the gospel of Jesus so that as many as possible would be baptized. Jack, what were you going to say?
Speaker 3:No, I love this image I'm a military guy the image of the air dominance Right and then boots on the ground. Being the local, the Marines can be like the early missionaries going in the Army. Is we're going to actually build the buildings, that kind of thing, and actually establish and take ground in that area? How could we as the local church be more intentional in partnership with Lutheran hour? I'm really curious about that, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, that's what we want. We are always coming alongside the local church. I hope that no one sees the Lutheran hour as their church and when I hear people some people write in and tell us that they say, oh, the Lutheran hour is our church. Again, there's exceptional cases and tell us that they say, oh, the Lutheran hour is our church. Again, there's exceptional cases. Someone can't get out, someone's traveling a lot for a time, for a season maybe, but we always want to be ushering people to the local church and so one would just be awareness that we're out there. You use us as a resource, use us as a way to get good content into people's ears and hearts. Through the week. I've heard statistic.
Speaker 4:David Kinnaman wrote this book. I've heard you guys talk about this on the podcast Faith for Exiles. He talks about how 18 to 25 year olds consume something like 300 hours of no, maybe it's even more, maybe it's it's a lot. They consume a lot of media. Go read the book.
Speaker 4:The thing that I remembered is that if you, if a person came to church every week for one hour which is pretty rare, that's a pretty devoted churchgoer. They're only getting 10% or less of Jesus' thoughts and content in their digital media. 90% of it is just whatever crime, drama or music or watching. You know, yeah, worse watching watching YouTube for whatever. And so how can we get more content? And so, maybe the local church. I would love it if every local pastor saw himself and every local church leader saw him or herself as a curator of content. You know, introducing people to different. Listen to this podcast, listen to this sermon, listen to this whatever. Watch this video and let's talk about it. And so use the content that's out there to, instead of always thinking we all have to create our own, let's use what's out there and walk with people and listen together and disciple through that or evangelize through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good. Well, lutheran Hour has been, yeah, been. Yeah, tip of the spear evangelism and innovation. People tell the story so often. When was it that lutheran hour? And I forget what speaker it was meyer, some meyer, probably. That was on the cover of time, magazine respected in culture like that's wasn't the 50s.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was it was um probably ozzy hoffman oz Hoffman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4:He's the guy. Everybody, everybody remembers he did it for 30 years and then another 20 years as an emeritus speaker. So he's the guy. Yeah, and that was at the at the peak of of the Christian and culture synthesis in America. Yeah. And we are, we are we are not in that place anymore.
Speaker 2:Not even, not even close. So so what is it? What is it like? Like get us behind the curtain a little bit. What's it like to be the lutheran hour speaker? I know, you know you don't start out, but one thing I remember having a vicar back in the day. I'm gonna leave his name. I'm gonna leave his name to to rest I can't to rest.
Speaker 2:But his goal was someday, he told me, I'm going to grow up and be the speaker of the Lutheran hour. A little side note too my dad was interviewed way back in the day, way before your time, for the Lutheran hour speaker, and I think for him he's a great. He's a great preacher. I love my dad. That was kind of this. There was a season is aspirational thing, but I think it kind of came at you out of left field a little bit and you're like come on get us behind the curtain a little bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I did not. I did not ever think I would do this. I had no aspirations to do this, never wanted to do it. Someone put my name in the hat and a long process. They called me and I wanted to be at my local church, got church, currently here in St Louis for four years. Things were really going well. We had started some lay training to do small group leaders and things were. Everything was just going really well.
Speaker 4:And this, this came out of left field and I had an elder who knew my military background, who knew kind of the cosmopolitan experience I'd had and moving 11 times, and and he, just he came up and it was kind of a prophetic word. He said, mike, I think Jesus has been preparing you for this and you should go, you should take it and a lot of other voices speaking, not a Lutheran celebrity, unless it's like at an LWML conference. There my kids give me a hard time. I'm like a Japanese anime artist at a Comic-Con conference or something like that. You know people really are into it if they're into it, but if they don't know, they don't know and that's the kind of celebrity it is. So most people just don't have a clue. You know what the Lutheran hour is and never heard of it, and I kind of like that. I am not a seek the spotlight kind of person, so Jesus was kind to me to not put me in here at this time at that juncture in history, so I can just kind of be off the radar in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4:Every there's the difference with the radio. You know it was the one of the few radio programs on and in the era when people would sit and listen to fireside chats by the president for 37 minutes. People, people don't. That's not how people engage with media. There are 300 podcasts launched every every day and so new podcast. So it's just a different, it's just digital Babylon. We, we live in a different time and we're just one table set up in that vast empire of of the internet.
Speaker 4:And so I there's a, there's a line I've heard from some theologian. You know you speak, pastors today speak as one, without authority, and of course we speak with the authority of Jesus, the power of the resurrection of the dead and the judge of all things. But from the person hearing you perspective, you speak as you kind of sound like a cult guy, you sound strange and you speak as one without authority, and so that's the approach that I've taken is, you know, I'm Mike and I'm going to tell you about my, what Jesus is doing with me, and I'm I'm a goofball, I'm, I'm a sinner, I make mistakes, and just let me tell you, let me just bear witness to the work of Jesus in my life and invite you to come along and listen to that too, and tell you I don't always tell personal stories, but I tell, try to tell lots of stories and draw people in with with story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's the way Jesus did it and restored creatures.
Speaker 2:And let me just affirm you have and I've listened to you for some time, devotionally, et cetera the humility, the kindness of Christ has been given to you and out of that you speak with. You know, confidence and courage and authority, I guess. But you're just accessible, mike, and you're doing a great, great job at just fulfilling your call, understanding the days in which we live, but keeping that tip of the spirit, evangelical heart, a hospitable heart open for, however, the Holy Spirit wants to work in people's lives. So you don't need me or Jack to tell you what you're doing, but you are in your sweet spot and I'm grateful you're serving in the way that you are Coming down the homestretch here.
Speaker 2:Give us your top three words of wisdom for holding onto the truths of our faith in an uncompromising way, while still this is a balance, right. This is that sweet spot, the middle way of Jesus, while still maintaining openness to listen and learn from those who do not believe what we believe. Any kind of general words of wisdom as we hold our truth with conviction, I guess, and kindness.
Speaker 4:Great question. The first thing that came to my head is you said that, especially for someone who's in church work, who has to make articulating the gospel and the, the grand story of God, creation of new, creation of all things in the death and resurrection and return of Jesus, like abide in the, in the word. And so this is how I I begin every as I prepare a Lutheran hour message is I, I internalize the word that I'm going to preach on, whether it's 10 verses or if I'm going to do something bigger, you know, a whole chapter. I was a part of this group that we, we retold the gospel of Mark live from memory and that has been so formative for me to to and not just memorize but to internalize so that I could be able to speak these words as though they were my own. And um, a good book that I've there's been an influence on me, and this is called um, uh, bringing the word to life by two authors, trowbush and Ward, and they they talk about internalizing the new Testament like that.
Speaker 4:You, you know, interpreting the new Testament through performing it, and that these are, these are ancient documents that were meant to be spoken. They are like sheet music. They were not meant to be read silently to ourselves. They were meant to be internalized. And you've seen, you know maybe some of the oldest manuscripts. They are written in Greek, all capital letters, no spaces. So to just to read this thing out loud, you would have had to study it to the approach of memorizing it. And then the ancient world valued the spoken word, so much is that the speaker was expected to. You're performing this, you're embodying paul in the process of, uh, speaking that word. So that would be my first word just internalize the scriptures, just keep going back to the scriptures and let the let the spirit of god work on you.
Speaker 4:And then I I liked what you had said. Um, jack, I think about not giving answers. Or, tim, maybe you said, but but dialogue, just keep dialoguing with people who are different than you, people who are not, not yet Christian, and listen for those. What, what are they? What drives them? What? What weighs them down? And engage in in dialogue. And maybe the last one I just say let's all stay in our lanes Back to the, the, the open. The opening was you know how, how we can do better, and those superordinate goals. These are the mission, formation and mission of disciples is such a big task. None of us can do it on our own. And, like Jack was saying, with the military, you just task. None of us can do it on our own and, like Jack was saying, with the military, you just. What's my job? What's my calling? Where am I called? How can I do this? Well, how can I run in my lane?
Speaker 3:And was it contributing to the mission right?
Speaker 4:Yep, and I don't have to be looking over my shoulder and you know, unless that's my call, unless it's my call to supervise people, just run in your lane, man, and do your work and let the Holy Spirit sort it all out. So there you go Internalize scripture, be in dialogue with people and stay in your lane. Those are my three words of wisdom.
Speaker 2:IDL, baby, internalize the word, I love it. Dialogue and lane. You articulated what sociologists and psychologists a differentiated and yet connected, a connected word. When you, when you talk, lane, that's like I'm differentiated. This is my call. God bless you in your, in your call, praying for you. But we got to go. Our, our contacts, our church, we gotta, we gotta go and, uh, we got to. As we go, we're going to dialogue with people and then the message that we bring is that embodied and internalized, performative word that always, always works. Just one last word you look forward 20 years from now. What do you pray the LCMS is known for as a church body? Mike.
Speaker 4:I sat down with a guy who's new to the LCMS came out of the Presbyterian Church, left the Presbyterian Church because of what he saw as compromises and doctrine, and he had such a fresh perspective on the LCMS. He described it as a safe harbor, a place where he could come and raise his family, a place that was not going to compromise but was open to an outsider like him. So if we can do those two things, if we can be a place where people know that we are not going to compromise the message we're going to tell people about Jesus and we're not going to stop that and we're going to be weird and we're going to have strange things. But it's also a place that is open to outsiders and it's not a club that only people of German heritage may apply, but somebody new could come in and find a home here and find a cultural expression here that may be different than what we've had in the last 150 years in the United States, but it's still the same core. Like you said, Jesus is Lord and everything that entails.
Speaker 2:Amen. This has been so much fun. He is the one and only Reverend. Dr Michael Ziegler, thanks for hanging out with us today. If people want to connect with you, how can they do so, brother, and the work of Lutheran Hour.
Speaker 4:Just go to lhmorg, check us out. You can listen to sermons there. You can see how we can energize and engage and equip you or your congregation for outreach. You know, it's not just, it's not one voice speaking to a million, it's millions of voices speaking to one. That's the two things that we want to equip lay people, everyone to reach out in the name of Jesus. So check us out, lhmorg, and let us come alongside you in mission.
Speaker 2:Amen. This is lead time, wherever it is you're taking in this conversation. If you would subscribe, like and follow, that really, really helps get more hope-filled conversations, not just for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod that we talk about. We're a part of the One Holy Christian Apostolic Church Anyone that bends the knee to Jesus as King and Lord. We want to partner and we are praying for a beautiful day of unity and mission around our common confession that Jesus is Lord in the LCMS. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day, Jack Mike. Great work, man. So much fun. The LCMS, it's a good day.
Speaker 4:Go and make it a great day.
Speaker 1:Jack Mike. Great work, man. So much fun. God bless you guys. Thanks, brother. You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.